KC-390 Three Aircrafts eliveries in 2019

Assembly of the plane enters the final stage in Gavião Peixoto

The military aircraft KC-130, Embraer, entered the stage of completion on the assembly line in the unit of Gavião Peixoto (SP): at least three aircraft will be delivered in the coming year to the Brazilian Air Force (FAB). One of the priority projects in the area of defense in partnership with Embraer, to the side of the Gripen fighters, the new carrier of use to military and civilian must be presented by the FAB in a ceremony organized for the Day of the Aviator, in October. Until then, there is the expectation that the airplane receives the type certificate of the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac).

The Value followed the demonstration of the aircraft to the Defense minister, Joaquim Silva e Luna, on Monday at the plant in Gavião Peixoto. There are two aircraft already in its completion phase, the other two in the stage of design (the one with the fuselage almost complete, the other with one of the wings ready), and the fifth already has the parts ordered, which must be done months in advance.

The president of Embraer Defense, Jackson Schneider, has confirmed the Value that the certificate from Anac will be issued later this year, and the first units delivered to the FAB in 2019, when we celebrated ten years of the start of the project. The contract for the purchase of the aircraft, however, dates back to 2014. The commander of the FAB, Nivaldo Rossato, said that the agency account, with the aircraft already operating in the coming year.

The FAB has ordered 28 aircraft Embraer: the budget of the Force by 2019 has reserved R$ 750 million for the acquisition of the aircraft. The sales negotiations are also advanced with Portugal, that should order five units. Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Czech Republic have already signed letters of intent-to-purchase model, the largest military aircraft produced in Brazil, which heads the consortium formed by Portugal, Argentina and the Czech Republic.

Dand according to the engineers, the assembly line, so that the company achieve the “learning phase”, it will be possible to accelerate the production and manufacture 1.5 or two units per month, in order to meet the expected growth in international demand.

According to an agreement signed in 2013, in France, it will be up to Boeing to the international promotion of the KC-390, and the boost in sales in markets where the aviation giant has played a strategic role. This partnership was celebrated five years prior to the joint venture announced in July, highlighting the vocation of the two companies to work together.

The freighter Embraer reaches a market niche where Boeing operates with much larger models, and it faced competition from Lockheed, manufacturer of the Hercules C-130, also of military transport, but developed some 60 years. It is precisely in the plane of the loads used by the FAB, which has already completed 53 years. “Ours is old, the KC390 is faster, carries more load with the cost of the flight hour cheaper, will make the difference in transport and in logistics,” says the brigadier Rossato.

Since that commissioned Embraer to development of a transport aircraft tactical in 2009, the FAB invested$ 5 billion in the project. In the testing phase, the prototype suffered from two incidents: in 2017, during a flight, and in may, when it slid on the track.

In addition to the document of the Faa, the plane needs to complete the certification cycle, with the attainment of Final Operational Capability (FOC) issued by the Instituto de Fomento Industrial (IFI), which should only occur in the coming year. In December 2017, the aircraft has obtained the Initial Capacity of the Operation (IOC), which ensured the necessary conditions for the start of the operation, as well as a provisional certificate from the Faa, attesting to the suitability of the project to the certification requirements of the category transportation.

Segundo Embraer, the airplane is in the campaign of tests, progressing “extremely satisfactory”, reaching the performance and capacity goals established, and already has accumulated more than 1,800 flight hours. To complete the campaign certification, you must achieve 2,000 hours of flight.